431–440 of 543 posts
Wow. How can anyone be confused about this? This is clear cut. The stackexchange answers are correct and this HN thread is filled with really unethical, almost childish advice. What the guy is doing is basically fraud. The employer expects him to do efficient work. If he can automate it, that automation is owned by his employer.
Why automation will be owned by his employer ? Just why ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds about the same as normal factory work if we're being honest, which is still around. Yes, it really does bore you to death. No, it doesn't make you incapable of thinking. Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. What it does do is to drain you of all energy such that it's hard to get away from it to something more decent.
> Usually the people who take a crap job like that simply don't spend that much time on intellectual pursuits to begin with. There are many who through circumstance or poor (or good?) choices ended up with the crap job but nevertheless pay attention to the larger world around them learn as much as they can. Maybe they studied history and are working in an Amazon warehouse. There is a lot of "squandered" intelligence…
There may be some people above the level working those kind of jobs but most are not really what you would called untapped geniuses. These are folk you can't rely on pressing a few buttons in the correct sequence when the situation is life threatening. Guesstimate : a lot of them are sub 100 IQ.
Educated people working in professions which select related to IQ get surrounded by other high IQ people they forget what the other side of the bell curve looks like - despite the liberal blank slate fantasies all people don't have the same potential, a big % is genetic/predetermined and those people are much more likely to end up in the low income bracket (income and IQ are highly correlated, and heritability of IQ is significant, and things like parenting are not other then being potentially detrimental).
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
Adam Smith began his wealth of nations with a description of the division of labor and an essay on how this division leads to an increase in productivity. Specifically, he gives the example of a worker who's sole job it is to make pins, and who devises a way to make them by machine, while previously, each pin was hammered out by hand over a matter of minutes, the new machine makes them in seconds. This division of la…
It wasn't in the UK ~20 years ago. I did agricultural piece-work as a summer job, and made way more than I would have done in a shop or fast-food restaurant (and got much more exercise and fresh air).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should the person who more efficiently does their work be punished with more work when others can do less and still get paid the same?
I would see it this way: I would offer to give that person more responsibility and more and perhaps more complex work. He could decide to perform as before and keep browsing reddit but if they choose to take more work that's likely the best path upward in the organization. Eventually the one who chooses no. 2 gets a promotion and gets paid more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a source for that 8x figure? I have heard the term tossed about in the context of engineering, but agriculture is a surprise! When I picked blueberries as a summer job there certainly wasn't an 8x difference between workers. Perhaps between us and the you-pick people?
I'd guess no matter the original context, once you're being 8x more effective than your colleagues, it's due to some kind of engineering. So in agriculture, your 8x hay mower is the one who's built himself a scythe instead of using a hand knife.
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
10% less than average you lower their wage by 10%?
Because this is how you would have to do it.
At the moment if you are good you will do better, if you are not so good you'll do worse but this cut throat I'm 30% better than average = exactly 30% more will hurt other workers.
Not a problem in the richer professions, a real issue for most though.
What about you work as a team and give a little to your fellow workers?
I'm surprised nobody has suggested he takes a second remote job. He's looking to send his kids to college after all. I don't see the problem with doing your job super efficiently. Adding bugs is just "a duck", not a real productivity loss. I don't see how you can claim the company wants hours rather than work done.
I'm just guessing but there is a legal concept call "duty of loyalty". https://www.google.com/search?q=employee+duty+of+loyalty The short version of which is the duty of loyalty requires that an employee refrain from behaving in a manner that would be contrary to his employer’s interests . That probably means what he's doing isn't okay but of course laws are different in every area and IANAL. It's would be arguably d…
This question is a beautiful example of typical incentives workers feel and how screwed up they are. On HN people talk often enough about how if you have a worker who gets their job done in 30 hours instead of the company's usual 40-60 hours, you should give them 30-100% more responsibility, but much more rarely "and 30-100% more pay." Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for…
> Butt-in-the-chair hours are super important culturally and it's been that way for a while it seems to me that this is directly related to the fact that many parts of management theory have been developed as part of a manufacturing industry instead of a service/"tinkering" industry. With manufacturing, more hours directly correlates to more units produced and thus more value created. This is not the case anymore tha…
Obviously this is a false premise, as no software/automation/process is exactly the same as the previous one and you can't apply economies of scale to the end products, merely skill and experience, and with any luck reusability of some parts.